Post by jno on Aug 16, 2019 8:03:05 GMT

I just watched a good made for TV movie featuring Anthony Valentine as an ex-SAS hostage expert helping Brian Dennehy retrieve his kidnapped daughter from terrorists in West Germany. While most of the action is in the final 20 minutes, it was a suspenseful thriller throughout and filmed in Germany. I actually had this film on one of those budget 5 film DVDs for a while, but hadn't watched it until now.

Post by mybodyguard on Aug 16, 2019 14:35:57 GMT

I just watched a good made for TV movie featuring Anthony Valentine as an ex-SAS hostage expert helping Brian Dennehy retrieve his kidnapped daughter from terrorists in West Germany. While most of the action is in the final 20 minutes, it was a suspenseful thriller throughout and filmed in Germany. I actually had this film on one of those budget 5 film DVDs for a while, but hadn't watched it until now.

Post by mybodyguard on Aug 17, 2019 17:37:15 GMT

Dear oh dear, second hand this is 2.15 GBP delivered on Amazon UK (from DVDCDsell), thus JB you just won the tightwad award for 2019.

Alternatively, you could take one for the team and leave us a nice review.

The reviews are questionable of that Hollywood DVD version, citing bad audio quality. I would recommend getting this Region 1 five film DVD where I didn't find that issue with Father's Revenge. This set is quite cheap on ebay. The Roy Scheider film Evasive Action is also on it, and that's a good B-movie action flick.

As a further bonus, you get Spy Killer, which is a good 1969 espionage film with Robert Horton and Sebastian Cabot, although that one does have low picture quality. The second film in that spy series has never been on DVD.

And as an even further bonus, just for JB, The Sweeper does feature some "flesh"!

Post by ltd on Aug 22, 2019 15:56:52 GMT

What exactly happens in that new more recent Callan book then? Is that well after Wet Job?

Bonfire Night doesn't really fit into the previous history of the series, or the other books come to think of it. Callan is persuaded to do one more job for the section although there's echoes of Ronald Radd's manipulative Hunter in that it's personal - the target is an ex-Stasi man who tortured Callan after capturing him in East Germany. Lonely joins in for old time's sake. It's not really Callan as we know it, and possibly allowances have to be made for James Mitchell being quite ill when he wrote it. I'd hazard a guess that he was on some pretty strong painkillers because the whole thing has an almost fever dream phantasmagoric quality to it. Characters who seem familiar from the series are quite different, or are absent altogether. It's almost as if it's a Callan episode beamed in from a parallel universe. I thought it was worth a read for sheer oddity value. Purists probably won't be happy though.

Post by ltd on Aug 22, 2019 18:44:46 GMT

I read the reviews of 'Bonfire Night' and they slated it to hell. Lonely, who was barely literate before, is now something like a computer software engineer!

I've read all the Callan books but I drew the line at 'Bonfire Night'.

It is worth a read just because it's so strange, but don't pay a fortune for it. Five and a half quid on Kindle is far too much. I got an ex-lending library copy for a couple of quid in a charity shop - that's nearer the mark.

There's a good blogpost by Rob Fairclough of Sweeney companion fame about Bonfire Night's genesis here: